by SS, Perth, Western Australia
It could be said by some that my marriage of eight years ended after I connected with Universal Medicine. However, there was so much more going on within my marriage before Universal Medicine that it would be very unfair and totally untrue to suggest that Universal Medicine was the reason my marriage ended. My ex-husband would blame my involvement with Universal Medicine.
So what was the cause of our marriage breaking down?
I married a man who I loved and spent eight years with. We had a great life, a lovely house in an ideal suburb, lots of friends, we traveled, and had successful jobs and a child together. Now, as with all relationships it was not always easy, and we had our struggles and issues. We had times when we were unhappy and times when we faced challenges.
The issues and struggles within our relationship seemed to come in cycles – the same things coming up for us to argue about, fight over, yell at each other, sleep in separate rooms, one of us threatening to leave, sometimes one of us driving off. I can’t remember what the actual arguments were over, but I do remember feeling completely disconnected from my husband during these times, very sad, at times angry – and at a complete loss as to why/how we were fighting in the first place. It was like something had surfaced from nowhere and things did not make sense at times.
As for me, I desperately wanted to be in a loving relationship, to work things through, to feel connected and to be happy. I was committed to my marriage and my husband, and absolutely dedicated to making our marriage work. There would be times when I would question my life and I would have a sense that there was more to it, that something was missing. I had a life changing event happen to me at the age of 34 which led to me questioning lots of things about myself and my life. I was still committed to my marriage but the priority was now me, my relationship with myself… and I couldn’t help but look at life differently.
My daughter was three when I suffered from pneumococcal pneumonia, which affects the lungs and presents like the flu. On the fourth day of having what I had been told by a doctor as being the flu, my husband took me to a hospital emergency. I was admitted immediately, induced into a coma and my husband was told that if he had left me home that day I would have died. Later in the day the head of intensive care told my husband that it would be unlikely that I would live through the night. This was to be our biggest challenge!
I did survive the night; my family flew in from interstate prepared for there to be a funeral. I spent the next two weeks in a coma – doctors had done all that they could and if I was to survive this it would be up to me. Needless to say that for all those involved, especially for my husband and family, this was an extremely challenging time.
When I woke up it was not a joyful reunion with my husband as maybe you would first think it to be, or with my daughter and family members. It was certainly not as you see in the movies! I had been very, very sick. I had three organs that had failed, I was suffering from blood septicemia and I was intubated so that I could breathe. My particular coma was not about lying around and resting each day, but one where I was actually fighting for my life. The example given was that each day I was running a marathon to stay alive. Doctors had tried to keep me alive, and hence my system had been absolutely overloaded with an assortment of drugs. When I woke up I still had a tube down my throat to assist me to breathe; I felt like I was in a dream and felt completely disconnected, dazed and very confused. I had people talking at me, telling me what had happened, and it all felt completely foreign. I lay there silent and unmoving. My family and friends were overjoyed at what was definitely deemed a miracle… even the hospital staff couldn’t believe that I had woken up. I was the talk of the hospital as there had been very little hope of me recovering.
So we have a picture of an overjoyed husband who has the love of his life back. We have the wife, myself, confused, disorientated, unable to speak or move. To my husband his horrific two weeks were over and for me, well, my journey was just beginning. While awake and still intubated I had many thoughts of wanting to die… and questioned why I had woken up at all. I had wasted away while in the coma and had lost all muscle tone and definition. I was so weak that I had to learn to do everything again – to sit up, to walk, to brush my hair, clean my teeth – literally everything had to be built up again as I developed my strength back.
And so my physical recovery began.
However, it felt like my husband and I were worlds apart. In fact we had a fight a couple of days after I woke up and he left the hospital. We were both under extreme stress but under completely different circumstances. He was trying to keep everything together and normal – his job, looking after our daughter, visiting the hospital every day etc. I was coming to terms with my physical recovery and trying to make sense of what had happened.
So I continued to recover, moving from physical recovery to wanting to understand more of the what, how and why had all of this happened? Our marriage continued and there was an attempt to get back what we had before this life-changing event happened to our family. But could we ever go back?
So our cycle of issues continued and became more and more regular. The more we desperately tried to hold together what we once had, the stronger the force seemed to be to tear it all apart.
During this time, approximately three months after leaving the hospital, I came across Universal Medicine and had an esoteric healing session with Serge Benhayon. He was the first person that said things to me that made sense of all that had happened re. being very sick. So I got involved with Universal Medicine and did some of the healing courses. My husband, in his own time, also did a course with Universal Medicine and had a healing session with Serge Benhayon.
My husband spoke with a friend of ours about his doubt and uncertainty re. all things Universal Medicine. He expressed his fears about our relationship and that he might not be worthy of my love, and that I might leave him one day. Four months later my husband left the marriage – this was 18 months after my near death experience, and about six months after I started to participate in courses with Universal Medicine.
So did Universal Medicine end our marriage? Absolutely not!
Universal Medicine helped me make sense of what I had started to feel after my near-death experience. That I actually had a connection with myself and it was one that was tangible, that could be felt and that was worth listening to. It was important to have a relationship with myself first and foremost. This is what my husband felt; that I was loving myself more and this brought up his own insecurities about how he felt about himself. So he gave me an ultimatum about me having to choose between him and Universal Medicine. However, he was asking me to choose him over myself, and I could not do this anymore. I had to choose to continue to investigate, understand, develop and nurture what I had been missing and desperately searching for, for a long time – a relationship with myself, my connection to my essence and my inner-most. If this meant that my husband had to leave because I wanted to start loving myself more, then I could not stop him.
Universal Medicine was an easy target to blame. Blamed because my husband felt rejected by me, and thus felt he had been deeply hurt. But the truth is very simple – our marriage ended because I chose to be more of myself. To me, and many of my family and friends, I was still the same person. To my husband, as I became more of me and stopped to consider loving myself more, I was different… and he chose to no longer be with me.
The Truth about Universal Medicine 
Rejection always comes from the self first, a rejection of our innate essence and the love within, well before we feel rejected by others. If your husband walked away because you were more loving with yourself it perhaps exposes that there was an arrangement, not an intention to build love together as a true relationship, which of course takes two to commit to. SS it’s great that you could use the life threatening illness and your re-connection to yourself to begin loving yourself again. It’s inspiring because you held true to what you knew was love for yourself under very difficult circumstances. Your love for yourself is actually something that supports everyone.
We can easily blame others for our ignorance, the tell tale signs are always there, when things are amiss in any relationship. Everything in life is about blaming others, yet how often do we truly look within and be absolutely honest and say, I’m part of this mess? A sad state of affairs around the world.
If we really sit down and consider, most relationships breakdown because we have lost the art of communicating. Open and honest communication begins from an early age. Instead, everything is pent up and then we explode from time to time.
Self love or self care is not selfish, there is no dependence on others. Any person could bring this to our attention,
It’s so easy to blame and very common, but as uncomfortable as it is we do need to see our part in everything in life because that is the only way to truly empower ourselves and bring about loving changes. As the old saying goes “It takes two to tango”.
The feeling of being Loving to our-selves is sometimes too much for others and they need their own timing to come to the same space. By not judging them and letting them choose there own path is simple and a practical way of living.
Beautiful wisdom Greg, thanks for sharing.
It is so simple, do not preach or teach, simply reflect as others will feel the Love.
And the feel of love is unmistakeable, no words are needed.
Truth does not blame, it only asks us to step out from hiding behind irresponsibility, but we play this game of blame, needing to hit back at what is actually asking us to be more as if that would make us less.
Near to death experiences confront our way of moving. Going back to it is not an option no matter what.
This is an article about choices, all throughout it there are choices made, and these are written about with respect and understanding.
‘….And so my physical recovery began’. Which in many ways is just the tip of the iceberg in the healing process for it addresses so many more aspects to our lives than just our physical body.
There always can be different perspectives to each story, but if we speak the truth of what happened the perspective is only one.
How could it be blamed externally something that has been initially broken within the relationship? Either we want to address or simply understand what has happened in the relationship, it’s only in the persons involved in it, that the answer can be found.
Hi SS, thanks for sharing your intimate story with us all. It sounds like quite a big journey for everyone involved, including your husband. As for the reason of why marriages break up we cannot really blame anyone, that would be a bit irresponsible. The reason has to be found in the relationship between the two involved.
There are stop moments in our lives that make us reassess everything and for the person who has not had that stop moment it is difficult to understand. We can blame everyone and everything but essentially we have a choice to be in a relationship every moment of every day and nothing holds either party there. Having a relationship with ourselves first means we are more aware of what we bring to the relationship and are less needy or irresponsible with our behaviour.
Agree Lucy, somewhere in the majority of our lives, we have a stop moment given to us. It does not necessarily have to be an admission into hospital either. It’s what we do with this offering that is the key. We are not nurtured in this manner, instead we see this as something being wrong, when it is simply communicating to look at us more from within.
Universal Medicine cannot be the true reason why any relationships ends. It is simply impossible. Yet, it is possible to attribute this to UM even if there is no truth to it at all. It is easier to do this than to assume responsibility for what goes on in the relationship.
When we have pictures of how things should be they obscure the truth of what is needed in each moment. At the end of the day we need to live what is true for ourselves and learn from what this offers.
I used to think the opposite of blaming others was blaming myself and feeling guilty. I realise now that there is no love in either of them. Blaming freezes us in time.
That’s an intense period you went through, and definitely nothing short of a miracle. It’s interesting how quick we are to blame something else for why we feel rejected or hurt. The moment things don’t go the way we plan, we seek reasons outside of what might actually be going on for us personally. We’re not conditioned to take responsibility for our choices and our behaviours, despite it actually being a natural quality we are born with.
My marriage ended and the only thing to blame was more self love I was choosing, not much you can do about that….
If we ‘love’ someone more than we love ourselves is that truly love? From my experience it is not. For when a person loves themselves they don’t need to fill another up. It pulls them to love themselves as well so that they do not need love from another. From Universal Medicine I have learnt that love cannot be given, it comes from within and another can remind us of whats inside.
It is so easy to blame another party for the demise of our relationships, because it takes the heat off looking at our part in its failing, or the fact that the union was no longer able to grow together and complement one another in harmony.
Great blog SS, when a marriage or partnership ends it is far easier to blame something outside of ourselves, rather than admitting to ourselves and others the part we ourselves played. I loved how you reclaimed yourself, and if that brought up an issue for your then husband, he had a choice to step up too, as relationships are always asking us to evolve to something greater, or we can choose to stay in the comfort we are in.
It is so interesting and actually sad that we have people who would prefer us to be part of who we are than the whole of who we are. I genuinely don’t think it is on purpose, it is, as you say, because they don’t want to be rejected and if two people got together as two halves of a whole then as one comes back to their divine whole, the other is more aware of their half status. We are just never told to be our whole selves from the day we are born to the day we pass over and that is the greatest shame of them all because it fosters marriages of halves.
“I had to choose to continue to investigate, understand, develop and nurture what I had been missing and desperately searching for, for a long time – a relationship with myself, my connection to my essence and my inner-most.”
I can completely relate to this sentence, for once I felt the absolute confirmation that Universal Medicine brought to my already developing feelings that there was more to life, I too made the choice to love me. In time I left my marriage, but not because I didn’t love my husband, I left because I began to love myself.
This is powerful to read, mostly because of your perspective on the whole situation – there is no blame, just the simple experience of you rediscovering who you are and understanding that whatever has followed from that is ok, it is ok for things to not be perfect and for people to choose their own path, perhaps a path that takes them away from you but that is ok too because you have learnt the value of love.
There is without doubt, a very powerful shift when we make the choice to love ourselves. When I truly understood this and connected to the love within rather than seeking it without, every relationship I had changed because beforehand they had been based on my need to find love. Suddenly, I had realised that love is abundantly available to me, and everyone, within. The seeking stopped and hence the neediness in relationships. It seems that we can mistake this ‘new’ self-reliance’ as distance or lack of feeling…but the opposite is the case. It is a more true connection to what we feel inside and my experience is that this is a wonderful way to live and to build relationships from – built of what we already are and bring to each other, rather than a false need to seek it from them.
It is interesting what happens when our relationship with ourselves grows stronger – it challenges our previous paradigm and how we have set things up and encourages us to be more of ourselves. Everyone is going to feel that shift – our partner, our kids, our work colleagues, our friends. It is quite literally life changing. However, when we do that it challenges the comfortable norm we have allowed before, whether that is the way we eat, drink, move, sleep, and of course interact. It exposes not only where we have allowed less, but equally the same for those around us as we begin to make better choices, and that is challenging.
It has been my experience that the stronger my relationship grows with myself the more it exposes the arrangements and compromises I have made with my relationships with myself and with others. Committing to working through these arrangements is a very healing thing to do.
There would be many who could relate to what you are sharing here SS. The most important thing is that we do need to love and honour ourselves first before any other.
The greatest love affair to have is with ‘self’ first, and then all our relationships become more loving and true.
Its a strange thing the end of a marriage. Is it a failure to have the marriage end? Or is it perhaps a blessing for both people to accept that something is not working and be grown up enough to step out of a ‘good looking’ arrangement, be real about what is going on, and free both parties to grow again?
Yes, I have noticed there is a very powerful potential to grow from a marriage breakdown and that if we are honest enough, to recognise when the good looking facade but stagnant relationship is not working. The sense in the body is like feeling you can breath again.
That, by it’s description is a horrific illness. I can understand in a way and while it’s not a reason for things, so often when people are in two different places with things it takes a lot to bring them back together. I could only imagine what it would have been like for the family and friends of a person they love, watching as they are dying. With everyone saying it’s happening it would be almost like you are starting to go that way as well and for them to come out of that would almost be shocking and extremely confusing. Not that I am making an excuse for what happened but I can understand it. I remember going through extreme things and while it took it’s toll on me it was also extremely difficult for those around me, it was almost anything that happened to me didn’t only happened to me and everyone had there own process with it.
Blaming is an easy and low-cost action that serves the person who goes for it. We all know how convincing can we be when blaming another one for our malaise. This, of course, does not mean that our account of things is true.
A near death experience certainly helped you to come to understand and sort out your choices and a way forward from there..
Thank you SS for am amazing story, what a journey you have had, nearly dying but coming back through it all to claim your own love, and tender care for yourself, which your husband was unable to accept and feel his own love. This is the missing ingredient in the lives of all of humanity, and for which we all long for.
Wow SS, what you’ve shared was incredible. Your journey is one of healing, allowing you space to question life and to reconnect to who you are. When we start making loving choices there can be many things in life that we realise will no longer serves us and the natural process is often to let them go. When we embrace love it supports us to clear what is not love, making space for love to expand.
This is massive, huge, I love the great detail and consideration you have throughout this article, it would have been tough for all that were involved and I imagine it a sensitive subject to write on yet you have been extremely honest done very well all considered. It’s so interesting how anyone could blame a relationship breaking down on a health and wellbeing business. I liken any blame of this kind to this example….’if your husband was cheating on you and you find out about it and you break up but you blame the woman he was sleeping with’… does that not seem a little misguided? Wouldn’t you be better off asking yourself and your husband how you got to a place in your relationship where anyone wanted to cheat and lie and why he was looking for intimacy elsewhere? People want to blame but ironically it means that they continue to attract more things in their lives that are giving the same message and that is to take responsibility, I know that I am guilty of playing the blame game but deep down inside, we all know its wrong.
People always want to blame but that deflects away from their own personal responsibility.. because therein lies a pretty big ouch that we avoid at all costs – that we are also to blame for the situation.
It is interesting to observe the responses and reactions when we begin to make changes in our lives to what we feel is true for ourselves after perhaps many years of putting others first. It can bring a lot up for another in their reaction to the love for self and unfortunately they can feel so hurt that they turn against us. Having this understanding supports us to remain with ourselves and be love in those moments of conflict and confrontation knowing that true love can never be lived unless self love is lived first. Thank you SS for sharing your awareness and insights on truth.
How can anyone possibly blame something or someone else for their marriage ending? Surely it is the responsibility of the two people who got married to either chose to commit to making the marriage truly loving, or to end it, we so are so fond of absolving our responsibility currently, but if we chose to enter into a relationship and it doesn’t work out surely we can only look at the two of us.
I agree Meg, this also applies to relationships where infidelity occurs where couples often blame each other or the other person involved for breaking up their marriage which fosters a lot of hurt. But when we are willing to take responsibility for where we are in life, it totally changes our perspective and it becomes clear that any blame never heals or resolves anything. It always comes back to taking responsibility for our choices, actions and behaviours, and to look deep within for what we know is true.
When we have a ‘life-changing’ experience we are offered the choice to make more loving changes in the way we live. For a true relationship to grow we have to honour each other for our choices and grow together.
Thank you for sharing your extraordinary story. Having such a huge life event occur really re-sets your priorities. I am sure you are not the first or last person to realise there is more to life or that they want to be growing and be more loving with themselves, only to find that their partner resists or is uncomfortable with these changes. As Serge Benhayon once described, we go into relationships with an unspoken contract. If one person changes, then the other believes they have broken the contract. However, this is not love.
So true. I must say though, how often did I hear “you are not the person I first dated” as I grew up through my younger years – we cannot remain stagnant, that is so damaging all round. To love someone is to constantly deepen the relationship, it is the greatest gift we can offer each other.
From my experience of a relationship ending, I noticed that when one steps away from the silent agreement both parties agreed to on starting the relationship, the other can start to react. Some relationships have made an agreement that neither party will live who they truly are, and when one breaks this agreement and starts to live the love they are, they realise that it’s not the relationship that they wish to be in anymore, they see that the agreement is not loving and never was.
You can never blame just one factor as causing the demise of a relationship as there is always a multitude of contributing factors that all fuse together.
Interesting to read your sharing SS. It seems that we all want to blame something outside of ourselves rather than taking responsibility for what happens in our relationship. The truth being that as we change and our partner doesn’t then this is often the end result.
I feel when someone delivers an ultimatum such as that another must choose between themselves or an activity that the person finds self-supportive it really exposes where that person is at – to me it shows a dependency and a condition placed on the relationship. Love is not something that binds us, it’s something that holds us without condition creating a space that does not impose on another’s right to grow and explore life.
Very much enjoyed reading your life-story SS and the truth of it.
This is a compelling read. Thank you for sharing your experience SS.
When I read this and with current experiences I realise how strong hurts can be in controlling how people choose to react to situations and how it totally clouds seeing others for who they truly are.
Sometimes people around us just aren’t ready, which is perfectly okay. Whats beautiful is that the love I have for people who are different to me is just as strong as for the ones who are similar to me. This love is there because one, my love for myself has deepened, and two, I understand people on a much deeper level now.
Resisting the truth and remaining in comfort doesn’t really solve anything, it just keeps us stuck in the illusion and delays our return back to love.
Blame is a very effective tool we can use when we want to avoid Truth.
Marriage and divorce brings up a lot. Ultimately marriage is a union and a constellation where we can either choose to evolve together and deepen our love or we can choose to essentially stay in the same place and continue on as we are. In my experience if we are not dealing with what is coming up and deepening our love individually and together then things will come up and if we choose to continue not dealing with them then something more drastic needs to happen. We cannot rely on our partner for anything as ultimately we have to be the love we are 1st and foremost. Then we can come together and what we get is out of this universe. Otherwise if we are not both being the love that we are then we have to ask ourselves would I actually want to be with the other person? And if the answer is no then why continue something that is not working? It is not about cutting anyone off but rather not holding ourselves back for another either.
What a beautiful story. Some may not find it beautiful as your husband leaves you. But all I see is the beauty of someone reconnecting with themself and that connection being so strong that the world around them had to change to make way for this connection. It’s not an easy thing to do – to allow the world around you, that can be so comfortable, to change.
The importance of building a loving relationship with self is the most important relationship we can have, for without that all our other relationships are based on a false platform and therefore bound to fail, even if from the outside it may look ‘successful’ and we continue in it, we are not being truly honest with ourselves, not living to our full potential, or in fact allowing our other relationships to truly keep evolving as they just remain static having a very shaky foundation.
I feel this to be the case with many marriage break ups where Universal Medicine is connected. When we enter relationships not knowing ourselves this is the person the other is having a relationship with. It can be extremely difficult for both parties to shift and accept who we truly are, and for some the reflection of being love is too much to bare.
Thank you for sharing the truth behind your marriage ending. Mine too has ended for all the same reasons you discuss here. Like you, I love the man I married dearly, but living together was a constant battle neither of us wanted to continue. The beauty I now feel is there for all to see, and I know deeply that whilst this is difficult for many, it is a truth, that one day maybe will be seen for the honest, loving, deeply sustainable way of life it is.
We enter relationships for all different reasons and sometimes very little changes but other times we change a lot. When we begin to put our own relationship with ourselves first this can often be super challenging for the other person and they can accept it or not. There is no-one to blame for this, for I am certain it happens all the world over. The individual circumstances may differ but when we do begin to consider our wellbeing and care for ourselves in a way that we have never done before, it is bound to rock the ground where we stand. Stepping up personally can be hardest for those who are the closest to us for they are seeing the choices that they are not making. Blaming another may be convenient and easy but it is not the truth.
Thank you for sharing your story SS and quite a story it is, as it clearly outlines the responsibility we have to learn to love and understand our self so that we are not relying on another to fulfill us. When we do enter a relationship without this love for self we are asking another to do what we have failed to do; love us. From here we enter dangerous territory fraught with blame and shame as neither can ever deliver what is required as there is no foundation of love of oneself, to come from only a need to fill the emptiness, and a rejection; as we have already rejected our self.
Dear SS, your words “However, he was asking me to choose him over myself, and I could not do this anymore. I had to choose to continue to investigate, understand, develop and nurture what I had been missing and desperately searching for, for a long time – a relationship with myself, my connection to my essence and my inner-most.” describe exactly what I was feeling and responding to when I finally plucked up the courage to embrace the journey of self-discovery which, as a consequence and with great difficulty and sadness, resulted in leaving our marriage of 33 years.
Wow what a story, SS you have so clearly outlined something so important, that we all make choices in life and they impact on those around us, in good ways and what can then feel like not so good ways. But ultimately, everything that we have reflected in life is a sum total of our choices, hurts, protections, love, self love and how we want life to be. Thank you for sharing what has unfolded for you and how you developed a deep and honouring relationship with you.
It is easier to run in the face of true love and not take responsibility of one’s life – so people get stuck in the comfort of life where they are not challenged to be more of the love within themselves.
Thank you for sharing this very personal and obviously life changing experience SS. I have come to see that when someone is blaming another the blame is often being used as a defense to hide a degree of guilt that they carry. And I am now able to acknowledge that I have done the same in the past, and in the process of blaming, and building a wall to hide the guilt, the issue at hand got blown out of proportion as I tried to defend something that really needed to be honestly shared instead. These days I will own the issue without hesitation, and to live a life that does not contain blame is so much easier, and definitely more enjoyable.
Life is indeed very much based on cycles and we only need to look at nature for confirmation of this. But more importantly when we accept we are living in cycles it also means we realise that we never leave anything behind, we always come back to it – it’s just like the unmade bed you left in the morning you come back to that night.
I’m struck by the familiarity of those issues that keep popping up… the arguments that seem so familiar and always seem to end the same way. We can (and I have) perpetuate these throughout the relationship, slowly poisoning the potential with undealt with issues that we try to smooth over. Ouch.
Gosh this is quite an eye-opening blog. In my experience relationships are something that are never stagnant, they are always growing and deepening. When someone desperately wants things to remain as they are, there is a control in this that caps the relationship and each person in it, making it very hard to continue with this, and the tension increases, eventually something needs to shift.
I too have found that it’s okay to choose a different path in life to another… if your partner, friend etc wants to join you, great, but they also can choose their own. It’s sad though when they allow their hurts to blame you or another instead of recognising they just didn’t want to walk beside you anymore.
This is an amazing sharing SS…there comes a point in our lives when we have to follow what feels true deep within us – some people will choose to come with us and some will not. It is simply a choice, there is no blame – each person has the right to choose their inner journey when they are ready.
I feel this is a really important point you’ve made SS – that for the first time you were choosing you: “So he gave me an ultimatum about me having to choose between him and Universal Medicine. However, he was asking me to choose him over myself, and I could not do this anymore.” It’s incredibly sad that we’ve been taught as we grow to consistently put others and their feelings ahead of ourselves. What Universal Medicine teaches however is the truth in that we can never love another without first having that love for ourselves.
WOW ! Thank you for sharing and making the power of our choices so clear. When we choose to be more love it may mean that friends/ relationships drop away but that’s ok (although sometimes challenging) because choosing love is the only way we evolve. When we stay stuck in unhealthy patterns we stagnate and loss interest in life which is harming to both us and everyone else.
An account which is so clear and thorough that it leaves no doubt about what truly lay behind the reason for your marital break-up. A much needed counter to the fabricated yarns and manufactured hate campaigns that have come as a result of a small number who have chosen hurt and humiliation as their immediate responses to their partner’s own growth.
Thank you for sharing your story SS. “But the truth is very simple – our marriage ended because I chose to be more of myself. To me, and many of my family and friends, I was still the same person.” Choosing to blame others for our hurts often means we don’t want to look at the part we play in a situation and the responsibility we have for our own feelings. We have to be true to ourselves first.
This is an awesome blog SS – very real and many parts I could relate to (excluding the near death experience that is!). My marriage ended several years ago, but not in any way shape or form because of being introduced to Universal Medicine, but for the same reason yours did. The issues in our relationship were there for nearly 2 decades prior to Universal Medicine and had never truly been addressed, – and it was only that we were both wiling to be more honest about this. It wasn’t always easy taking responsibility for this, but as a result of the love I have chosen to develop for myself, my ex and I have more of an open loving relationship than we ever had when we were married.
This is very inspiring to read Angela…”…as a result of the love I have chosen to develop for myself, my ex and I have more of an open loving relationship than we ever had when we were married.” Staying in a dysfunctional relatiohship is more harming for everyone, and when one person has the courage to move on, there is the opportunity to truly heal that relationship and the relationship we have with ourselves. When my relationship ended, at the time I found it challenging, but I could also feel how I had calibrated constantly to someone else and not been true to me, and now I had the freedom to develop a relationship with myself, for myself – and that has been pure gold.
Blaming something or someone outside a relationship for disharmony within a relationship is an excuse for not choosing to work together honestly to build a loving foundation. Universal Medicine has inspired me to open up and not hold onto perceived hurts and our relationship has flourished and become a true partnership.
Beautifully said Brendan. Awareness and reading is the key here.
“But the truth is very simple – our marriage ended because I chose to be more of myself. To me, and many of my family and friends, I was still the same person.” Thank SS for sharing your story, it makes so much sense, when we don’t take responsibility for our own hurts it is easy for us to lash out and blame others. Good for you for standing strong in what you knew to be true.
Thank you for sharing your story SS, only the people in a relationship determine whether it flourishes, stagnates or ends. Blaming something external is just an excuse to avoid taking responsibility for ones expression within that relationship.
Thank you for sharing SS, I love reading your account and sharing that you started to love yourself, which wasn’t what your husband could accept for himself.
When I first started attending Universal Medicine presentations and courses relationships were also rocky and fell apart, but under no circumstances was Universal Medicine to blame. What I have learnt is that those relationships were often not true, they were based on needing another/others, to be liked or to fit a certain role. They weren’t based on two people coming together to just be themselves, as often was the case when we would come together or chat, it was from this clicky way of being that was solely between us, and this would change depending on who I was hanging around with at any given time. But the relationships that have remained have become a lot more solid, less needy and far more loving. Universal Medicine doesn’t break people apart, only questions if these relationships and the behaviours within them are supportive and loving.
The truth is in the details as any good lawyer would say. It is easy to lie when it is generalised with no substantial definition.
Almost like a blanket affect.
But once the details are looked at all comes to light.
The turnaround in your health is a living miracle SS. What you share here about your recovery and the ending of your marriage is very supportive and inspiring for anyone dealing with similar challenges. When an ex-partner blames Universal Medicine for their marriage ending they are choosing to take no responsibility for their part in the demise of their marriage. You choosing to deepen your love for yourself triggered him and his unresolved hurts, his choice to blame Universal Medicine leads him down one path and your choice to truly love led you down another path. I know which one I would rather choose- I have chosen wisely and have loved every minute of it.
Life is absolutely about relationships, connections and commitment. Marriage can be a very beautiful and evolving experience to have, I know it is for me. It requires dedication, openness and understanding and I have not always had these qualities in abundance. I am learning to develop these qualities and others, as is my husband. I know that if one of us chooses to be more committed to expressing and living with love this challenges the other, it is a natural part of the relationship, and if one of us perceives that the challenge should become too great, then the relationship would naturally evolve into something else. Universal Medicine does not break up relationships, attending courses have enabled my husband and I to deepen and appreciate our relationship and marriage, the exact opposite.
Universal Medicine simply brought a reflection of deeper and grander love into your life SS and this translated in your marriage as a pull to a greater love between you both. Some people cannot handle true love as it asks too much responsibility and truth to be lived and although it sounds silly as we are all in truth are wanting to be Love and be Loved, some choose to turn away when it is presented to them.
Thank you for sharing this amazing story of your return to life and to your connection to who you are. It is clear to see that Universal Medicine was not the cause of your marriage ending. It is always easy to cast blame elsewhere when we do not want to accept responsibility for ourselves in our lives.
SS an amazing story that shows that each person has an opportunity to choose true love or not.
This is such am amazing story SS. Thank you for sharing how your near death experience helped you develop that connection to yourself. I am learning how vital my relationship with me is, and it is this relationship that forms the foundation of how I am with everyone and everything else in my life.
I love how you found your relationship with yourself so precious that you were unwilling to let it go, what a great foundation to rebuild your health on.
My goodness, what an incredible real life story SS. It really shows that relationship issues are not one sided and that there can be much going on for both parties. I really admire the way that you have been able to share this in what you have written here and clearly you have a great understanding for your husband, but above and beyond anything else you are not willing to compromise yourself. That IS LOVE. Sometimes I can judge myself harshly and hold back from being just me and all the Love that I am and being firm with certain situations in my life being unacceptable. Your blog has reaffirmed to me that it is perfectly acceptable to put a loving relationship with ourselves first.
Thanks SS for such a personal account of events, it is an admirable example of choosing truth for yourself irrespective of the consequences.
Wow SS – a very intimate account of your marriage and what you were going through in your life to get you to a point of needing to make a change.
Universal Medicine has helped hundreds of people look at and be honest with what is going on in their lives. It has given me a sense of responsibility, stopped me being a victim of life and allowed me to see and experience true love for myself, with my husband to be, and with others. If I didn’t know of Universal Medicine, chances are I would be settling for the same emotionally abusive relationships I have always been attracted too. But now it is about building the relationship with me first, being honest about where I am at and then taking that out to the world.
SS – your choice to end your marriage feels very much like you listening to whats needed, and honouring when something does not feel like love.
To me that makes sense.
Universal Medicine does not break up marriages – it simply gives us the choice to pull the wool off our eyes.
And since being involved with Universal Medicine, I can say that I have stronger relationships now than ever before.
Universal Medicine doesn’t break up all relationships as it has been blamed for. It simply exposes the quality of them. The ‘break up’ part comes from saying no to that which is not love. From my experience the more I have broken up or from these harming relationships ( in and with myself, others, habits, situations) it allows the space for relationships of greater quality. The only time I want things to stay as they are is to avoid feeling that I am grander than I choose to accept, beyond my hurts and past ill choices.
I love this line Leigh it is so true “Universal Medicine doesn’t break up all relationships as it has been blamed for. It simply exposes the quality of them”
Yes this is spot on!
Thats right Samantha, and I’m sure Universal Medicine has helped encourage many truthfull relationships.
Absolutely true Leigh and Samantha – for me this is very profound “it simply exposes the quality of them”.
Thank you for sharing such a personal intimate story. As you say one’s relationship with oneself comes first. If one is not true to that, to oneself, how can you be true and loving to another?
This is such an important question to ask ourselves regularly Jonathan.
Thank you so much for sharing SS. To me, it doesn’t sound like you rejected him, it could be seen as he rejected you too. But that’s not the case either. Most relationships are based on a need, as we want someone to fill something for us… You be this way and I’ll be that way for of thing. When you start filling that yourself the need you have subsides yet the other persons still had that And You can see where that leads. Someone trying to get something filled and the other person doesn’t need filling, there’s not many places to go with that.
Wow, truly powerful SS, it is so obvious to me that you could not choose anything other than you did, as you can only truly love another once you have truly begun to love yourself first. What Universal Medicine connects us back to is the love that we each are naturally entitled to, the love of self. The choice is ours.
Jade yes it does always come down to choices and even though we like to blame others, I am realising we always choose. Even not choosing is a choice.
If I can register that I am blaming, I have enough awareness to stop blaming-as you say Debra, “it’s a choice”.
The accusation from a small group of ‘cyber bullies’ that Universal Medicine ends relationships is clearly countered in this beautiful article. The choice to be more loving does result in many different reactions, I have seen this within my own life, as I have chosen to be more loving with myself, some people welcome it and others find it challenging. I know I have felt confronted myself when I have meet someone living more fully from love, we do have a choice when we experience this, to chose love ourselves or react against it.
What an incredible story. I can relate to what you experienced with why your relationship ended. As you simply put it, he wanted you to choose him over you. It is sad but that is the way it is in most relationships. We want our partner to make us feel loved and secure, rather than love them enough to just want to see their love grow. This would be a true relationship.
Wow SS, you have certainly had a roller coaster ride! What struck me as I was reading was the absolutely solid way you have claimed yourself. It has provided me with inspiration to go through my day with lots of self loving choices. Thank you.
What an amazing journey you have had SS. When relationships break down and there is no understanding of responsibility, there remains a hurt which is a gate way for jealousy and resentment which are an excuse to blame someone else for what we see as our loss and what has been taken from us, instead of us being open to what is offered.
SS thank you for sharing. When one person in the relationship begins to express more self love than the other it makes that person feel vulnerable and blame anything on the outer as this is how they have been living. When we don’t live from the inside out we need things on the outside to fill our emptiness, so for some blaming Universal Medicine for the loss of their marriage is them looking on the outer.
SS, I loved reading this blog as I can feel many similarities between you and your husbands journey and my journey with my husband.
Since coming to ‘the work’ (learning to self-love) my husband and I have separated, gotten back together and almost separated again. It definately can be confronting when all our expectations are no longer met…but I can feel the possibility (when both partners choose) for an amazing co-creative relationship where both are allowed and nurtured to flourish.
I know, I used to fear missing out on something if my husband cared more for himself…but the truth is the complete opposite the more we care for ourselves the more we are able to care for others.
Thank you SS and Pernilla, I agree, the strength of my relationship has developed because of Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon. With self-love we eventually get to an understanding that if our partner is not willing to evolve with us, then this would truly hurt you both. To me the amount of people whose relationships have been saved by Universal Medicine is immense; in comparison the breakdown in relationships would be a drop in the bucket. The abuse and disregard that “was” in my relationship in the past has taken a lot of soul searching on my part to get to the harmony we live in today!
A deeply beautiful and personal sharing… It is always easier to blame rather than feel and take responsibility for what you are not ready to see.
Very wise words Sammy! I would also add “or not willing to see” as if something presents to be dealt with our bodies must be willing to let it go, however our heads can over-ride the healing.
Thank you for sharing your story SS. It makes so much sense that your marriage did not end because of Universal Medicine but because of a choice. Universal Medicine does not break up marriages, like no thing outside truly can break up a marriage, only the ones involved in a marriage can make that choice.
Dear SS, thank you for sharing your amazing experience. Coming back from near death has to have a huge impact on anybody I feel. It is amazing how you decided you had to find out what this was about; that it wasn’t just ‘bad luck’. Through investigating further, so much more has unravelled for you, and you know now who you really are. I love how you describe how you felt when you finally woke up. You were at a total new beginning, whereas your husband thought the bad stuff is over now on wanted to just carry on and for things to go back to the way they were before. It must have taken a huge dedication and courage for you to keep looking deeper, to unravel what really was going on. You are an inspiration to me.
Wow.. Its funny that when we first make more of a commitment to ourselves people think that we don’t care or love them anymore when in actually sense its the opposite, we’ve totally got it back to front
How wonderful that you found you and realised that firstly you needed to have a relationship with yourself. As I have found this is the most amazing journey and sometimes I get distracted and stray a little way off track, but once I have connected to my essence there is a deeper knowing that impulses me back.
When I started reading your comment Jane, I was reflecting on my experience with my friends and family since I was introduced to Universal Medicine. I am appreciating how my family and friends are not reacting to me connecting to who I am, and me learning to be more loving to myself. My family are seeing the benefits and changes in me that they are amazed and are loving every part of it. They are hugely supportive of my journey and I have only recently realised how amazing this is and to not take it for granted. I am learning to express my deep appreciation for their support and love. I am truly blessed with my amazing family and friends who are so supportive of me making loving choices in my life and to share and appreciate the joy this brings. With my extended family overseas, I haven’t seen them for over 9 years and I am looking forward visiting them as there are going to be some challenges for me to work on. I know if I hold myself connected to who I am, and always express truth and love, there will be no challenges, just lessons.
Wow, amazing blog S.S. Thank you for sharing. It was remarkable your recovery from your illness, and the choices you’ve made after that was inspiring. You choosing to reconnect to who you are and to love who you are was so beautiful to read. It was very inspiring the way you worked through the challenges you faced when you woke up from the coma; it was an horrific time for you and your family. Your journey to discovering who you are and loving who you are is amazing to read. I have also observed that when someone close to me is deeply hurt by their own choices but chooses not to take responsibility for it, it becomes very easy for them to blame themselves or others for their pain. The biggest lesson for me is to not take on their responsibility or feel the need, or feel responsible to change what I am doing, or who I am, to try and make them feel better. In my experience it has never worked. It wasn’t a loving way to be. I am learning to approach it another way, with love, understanding, to give them space and to not impose with the need to fix anything. The key for me is to stay connected to who I am and even though they may feel rejected by me because they can’t relate to me anymore, I know my love for them is always there and that I have never left them.
Thanks for sharing SS
God’s ways are huge.
Thank you for sharing how your marriage went out because of you loving you more, and becoming more of yourself. I find it very inspiring how your husband leaving did not leave yourself to hold onto what you had, but really choose for you, the real you.
I agree Benkt, super inspiring, a true commitment to self.
SS I felt honoured to read about your journey back to you. Very inspiring!
I got the sense that you began to re-evaluate your life and choices after you awoke from your coma SS. This illness was clearly the catalyst that allowed you to connect to your own wisdom and a powerful reminder that your body will always support you to live true to you. An incredible blessing and opportunity that you seized with both hands. Very inspiring SS.
We feel so threatened when we cannot control the other person any more. When one chooses to step up and consider themselves more, the pain of seeing that we did not do that for ourself can be too confronting. It’s incredible to think that we consider love to mean not truly caring and loving yourself first. This is so far away from love. Also that we feel rejected when one begins to do things for themselves. How crazy is that. Life has set us up to not be in the joy that another can love themselves first, and to share in that equally together.
Beautifully said Gail. The pain one feels when another chooses to step up and lovingly care for themselves more, is the pain that we have not chosen that for ourselves. Yes, we really have gotten Love the wrong way round – no wonder relationships are viewed as too hard by so so many. To share our own love with each other is such a joyful way to be, not needing anybody to be lesser, but everybody claiming who they truly are.
I can so relate to what you describe here, SS that “I had to choose to continue to investigate, understand, develop and nurture what I had been missing and desperately searching for, for a long time – a relationship with myself, my connection to my essence and my inner-most.” I was married for 12 years; for the last two I stopped investigating and searching because I wanted to try to ‘save’ my marriage to a good man who had supported me in my searching up to a point. Towards the end of those two years I realised and accepted that I was slowly dying inside and that there was nothing that was worth losing myself over, not even my marriage. We parted amicably. I had not heard of Universal Medicine and did not become a student for a further 5 years. Universal Medicine was certainly not to blame for the break-up of my marriage in the same way that it isn’t to blame for the break up yours if I may be so bold as to say so. When a person can no longer support and embrace the growth they are seeing in a partner, there is no one to blame and nothing to point the finger at. It is a simple growing apart taking place and for the person who is searching and investigating it is like a momentum that takes on a life of it’s own and nothing and no one can stop it. I know, I tried. Thank you for your beauty-full sharing.
What a powerful blog on relationships, full stop. Thank-you SS for your candidness in sharing this part of your life. It’s been my experience also, that when someone doesn’t feel in control, they seek someone to blame, especially in partner relationships.
The thing is, a relationship, if truly lived (and not stagnated in for convenience) can NEVER be a static thing. Yet staying stuck in an ill relationship dynamic is all too common. It can be comfortable ‘status quo’ for many of us – at least it’s a ‘known’, it’s familiar, however horrendous the tension…
Nevertheless, we do get signs and signals along the way that alert us to the possibility of there being more, that alert us to the fact that we do know deep down that things needn’t be this way – it is our choice to acknowledge such signals, whether they be a life changing event, or repeated cycles of unhappiness… Every single one of us does know ‘the real deal’ of love, deep within. And we crave it when we do not have it.
I would say that those who choose to reconnect to and commit to this love – even if it ‘disturbs the seeming safety of the known’ for ourselves and potentially those close to us at certain junctures – are the ones who are forging, and will forge the true way forward for humanity, for all our relationships both personal and global, in the times to come.
Hats off to you SS for not compromising yourself to an ultimatum of ‘either the marriage of Universal Medicine’, i.e. ‘the marriage or all that you know is true’ – and clearly honouring the knowing that the ultimatum was falsely founded in the first place.
And thus, opening yourself to ‘more’ – more of who you truly are.
SS, thank you for a very honest account of what has happened in your marriage and the connection to your own commitment to self. I have no doubt that how all this played out in your life has been quite intense. I am impressed by your steady devotion to claim what you felt regarding your relationship with yourself as the cornerstone for relationships with all others, despite the pressure to go back to old ways.
The honesty in which you write SS is to be admired. It is easy to see how the third party in a relationship can be blamed, anything to avoid the responsibility of looking at what is actually going on.
Thank you for sharing your journey SS, you have expressed so eloquently how you came to commit to an evolving relationship with yourself ‘I had to choose to continue to investigate, understand, develop and nurture what I had been missing and desperately searching for, for a long time – a relationship with myself, my connection to my essence and my inner-most.’ This often brings challenges for those closest to us when we become more honest about what if true for us. They may react and choose to leave as your husband did because they feel rejected but actually they are rejecting the opportunity to become more loving themselves.
Thank you SS for sharing your experience. Opportunities come in all forms and if the timing is right and a person is open to what is offered, the choice to evolve is made. When you shared..’and he choose not to be with me’ – feels very powerful, as the ‘Me’ you are speaking of is the deep truly loving essence that you were born with, connection to self. You rejected the emptiness created by what the world said you should be – one who is directed by other forces outside of yourself. Every time I hear about people living more of themselves and bringing more love to the world, I feel such joy. The gift of yourself is a gift for ‘All’.
When you said your husband gave you an ultimatum about you having to choose between him and Universal Medicine, he was asking you to choose him over yourself. I can so connect to how Universal Medicine is so much a part of me too. Well described the relationship you have with yourself and Universal Medicine.
Amazing how building a more loving relationship with ourselves first reveals the true picture of how we are in a relationship with another.
Thank you for sharing this story. This shows so clearly that we all have a choice in everything we do. You were inspired to feel the love within you and live with that deepening connection and your husband was offered the same inspiration but of his own free will made a different choice. There is no one to blame, we all make a choice for ourselves.
Beautifully said Mary, I totally agree. There is no one to blame, we are definitely responsible for our own choices.
Awesome love story! Finding true love within yourself!
Yes I agree, Rachel, an awesome love story!
Life without true self love is always complicated and full of hurts and reactions. We all have made decisions that seemed right at one point but on reflection could have been made another way. This will likely continue. You and your husband both made choices that were right for you at the time. It is so sadly common that we allow ourselves to think that others played a part in our own decisions, so complicated and dishonouring of ourselves and our feelings. If we were to really allow ourselves to fully acknowledge how we feel, and take responsibility for that, we would possibly make different decisions.
You are alive for a series of reasons. Amongst them, the fact that your husband took it that day to the hospital. He deserves a lot of credit for that. He also did his expected bit (taking care of your family while you were gone from home). A near to death experience I imagine does not make easy to go back to ‘normal’. Both of you chose afterwards. You chose you first, you chose to heal. He chose his hurt. He chose his needs, hence, to read your decision as a rejection. He could not see you and understand you. He chose to go. Universal Medicine cannot be blamed at all here.
Thank you for sharing this SS. The way you said “If this meant that my husband had to leave because I wanted to start loving myself more, then I could not stop him” puts it so clearly.
Very inspiring and I loved reading this blog with it’s total openess and honesty. It is true, once we start to discover the relationship with ourselves and to develop it, there is nothing that can stop us. As challenging as it may be, we commit to ourselves first.
Thank you for a beautiful blog SS. It is quite a journey you have made when falling seriously ill. It takes courage to choose YOU first and not everybody will understand or worse they feel rejected, but in truth they get more of you than ever before but it may not fit the picture or ideal they are still holding on to.
A beautiful blog SS. “..our marriage ended because I chose to be more of myself.” You showed a lot of courage to hold that commitment to living your truth eventhough it was at the expense of your marriage.
Awesome blog SS. By making the decision to self love and self care you made yourself more important for the right reasons and even though you separated from your husband it is inspiring to read how you were not prepared to compromise on what you felt was the truth.
So true Tim, because unfortunately not many people in our society chose to honor themselves. However it is changing and your a perfect example SS that people are starting to see that we cannot over ride our feelings and ourselves just to please or keep someone else happy.
Yes, reconnecting to ourselves can be very uncomfortable for others around us as you say, SS, it was for your husband, “I was loving myself more and this bought up his own insecurities about how he felt about himself.” However, if you do not love yourself first how can one truly love another? So what appears unloving to the other is, in fact, the most loving act we can do however uncomfortable and rejected the other feels.
Thanks SS, a beautiful account of becoming more of who you are – love; and a partner choosing not to connect to the love he is. It’s odd that, at our deepest depths, we are all looking for love and yet, if a partner can’t find that for themselves, they leave. It is so confronting for someone who chooses not be the love they are; therein lies what is behind the blame aimed at Universal Medicine, initiated and supported by people choosing not to find the love within themselves.
Wow – a moving story about the simple strength of connecting to ourselves first.
A tough decision when people around you don’t understand that, but ultimately – I’ve come to understand that by loving ourselves first, we’re offering so much more to others.
Now that is a beautiful cycle.
What a lovely journey back to your true self. I too have chosen to go back down the path to find what I have been hiding from forever… my true self, and have also experienced the pull or push this causes on those around me. I have felt that there are some that don’t know why, but have sensed this same true self in themselves and others that don’t like the change in me, and it seems to rock their boat, and as a result some of my relationships have also changed during this time. What I am learning is that the more I work on the relationship with myself and the more I chose to be my true self, the more I am able to keep being me, the relationships around me naturally seem to be more supportive.
I am finding that the more I work on my relationship I have with myself and chose to be more of my true self, more of the time, I feel more confident in being me. Because of this confidence, the relationships around me naturally just seem to be more supportive.
Thank you for sharing. It can be confronting when someone chooses Love. My husband and I have attended Universal Medicine courses together and it is confronting when one makes a choice to be more love and not turn away from self responsibility. We are ultimately more connected and intimate than we have ever been in our relationship. This has been a work in progress for us and we find that we alternate in position and we are even learning to celebrate when the other finds more awareness and so the other feels drawn to step up with them.
Is Universal Medicine responsible for relationships changing? No. For me, it is an inspiration to be all me in full. The dynamic of any of my relationships may alter because of that evolution.
This is an inspiring true ‘Love story’ with yourself, SS! Thank you for sharing
This is a beautiful confirmation of self. A tough story to hear but a beautiful unfolding. Good for you, and an amazing tale to take with you always.
Apart from the hospital bit and the near death experience you wrote my almost identical story! First few paragraphs I had to pinch myself to make sure it was real. But come to think of it, everyone is in the same boat, just different expressions. There are billions of women in same, similar, different situations but the bottom line is the same; we know when it’s not right, but we bury that feeling somewhere so deep that we start to believe that he/she is it. Until such time that the feeling we buried begins to ‘rot’ and starts to smell. The terrible whiffs of the rotting buried feeling we get from time to time start to get stronger and stronger to the point that it can no longer be ignored. We finally wake up to the original feeling that this relationship is not it and we act. Most, if not all of the time, the other person who feels rejected looks for something/somebody to blame – if it’s not Unimed and Serge Benhayon it is: your mother, your work, your travels, your aggression, birth of a child, another woman/man, tiredness, money, changes in body weight. headaches, and what not – perhaps even global warming 🙂 – the list is endless. Re-learning to honour what is truly TRUE for us is our best investment.
Thank you for sharing this, it is a great story of love. Reading your amazing story what hit directly home for me is your sentence — “he was asking me to choose him over myself, and I could not do this anymore”. This says it all. Thank you.
Your strength and willingness to be all that you are started at a point that would have been traumatic and so easy to slip back into the comfort of a relationship for ease sake. Something we have all done to degrees to make our lives ‘easier’ and less ‘confronting’. You are an inspiration SS for choosing, absolutely, to be you, and to continue to bring down the ideals and beliefs that have held us all back for so long. This highlights too how easy it is for men and women to seek refuge in relationships that on the surface allow us much but underneath are a holding pattern for dis-harmony. When one shifts they are swiftly bought back into line not just by each other but by the ‘norms’ that society wants us to live by. Thank you for sharing this literally ‘life changing’ event with us all.
Hear! Hear! and SS thank you for sharing your story, it was a very beautiful to read about.
This is an awesome story, one that I can relate to greatly. Thanks for sharing.
The urge to have someone or something external to blame is really understandable and common in relationship breakdowns. It enables the party that is pointing the finger at anyone but themselves to remain a ‘victim’ and not stop to consider their own chooses and responsibilities.
When my parents divorced in the 80’s my dad (who drank to alcoholic levels) blamed one of my mum’s close friends who had recently left an abusive relationship. She was branded by my dad in regular rants as a ‘blooming bra burning feminist’ putting ‘all these ‘nontraditional’ ideas of emancipation’ into my mum’s head and ‘brainwashing’ her. When this was wearing thin he would blame the office workers in the factory mum had gone to work at recently, saying they had put the idea into her head. He worked hard to convince himself this was the case.
It’s almost like in society there always has to be a ‘hard done by victim’ and a ‘guilty’ party. Many people simply blame their ex partner entirely for relationship breakdown and are 100% unwilling to consider how they might have contributed to things becoming unworkable. I see this in the town I live (which has a much higher than national average relationship breakdown rate), all too often. Here I’ve even heard people trying to blame the river pollution!!
This blaming is like a protective mechanism to not have to take a pause, and self reflect about personal choices, behaviours and other such uncomfortable and potentially painful subjects. Plus as we all know all too well hurt and anger go hand in hand, having something we consider worthy of being angry at can be the ideal vent for our undealt with hurts.
Whilst it saddens me that there are some people trying to cast entirely unfounded blame on Universal Medicine for their relationship breakdown, I do understand why people seek to blame someone, anyone. I suppose UniMed has just become another target. Thanks for the insight SS into how your reality was on the ground, it really debunks the blame game and puts it into perspective.
Great Comment Kate I love how you describe that blaming is a protective mechanism – because that is exactly what it is and how we use it to avoid feeling our part in any break down in relationships. This blog really reveals how we can be honest in and about our relationships from our connection to our self first.
Yes, thank you for building on what SS has shared Kate.
Blame is being irresponsible. It is a lie people tell themselves to in order to not consider their own contribution to the situation at hand, and, hence be responsible.
I re-realised again recently that playing victim is a protection from feeling how simply capable we are of expanding beyond all the dramas etc we create to play small and not feel, let alone live, the deeper version of who we are. Blame, responsibility, fault, victim, all these concepts start to take on a whole fuller meaning and implication when felt from the body as either being part of expanding into ourselves, or shrinking from our potential.
It is interesting in relationships how, when one person chooses to connect to and truly be more of the love they are, that the other then has the choice to also do the same, or not! So actually it is the person that is saying NO to love who is the one that leaves or in effect blames love for the ending of the relationship. Odd, in a world where the one thing we crave the most is love. Thank you for sharing your story as it highlights this scenario beautifully.
Thank you for sharing.
Thank you SS, for sharing your journey that has brought you to you and in doing so, not blaming or denouncing your husband for his choice. When we meet true love, it can be challenging, as we have to face all the reasons why we don’t love ourselves and sometimes our resistance can be very strong. Once we have connected with ourselves, then there is no other choice to make except to love ourselves more.
I love that Rowena, ‘once we have connected with ourselves, then there is no other choice to make except to love ourselves more.’
Beautiful revelation S.S, when a truth comes like that in your life, a near death experience, all falseness falls away, everything becomes crystal clear. “But the truth is very simple – our marriage ended because I chose to be more myself” and “he was asking me to choose him over myself, and I could not do this anymore”, when a relationship ends, it is often the heart that speaks so plainly but eloquently. This doesn’t mean that it isn’t sad or painful for the two involved, it is a responsibility shared and, sometimes it is difficult to evaluate, until you have distance and time to heal. I love how you claimed for yourself that for you and your family and friends, you were still the same person, you were just learning to be more yourself, whoever takes umbrage at that, never was really motivated to love ALL of you .
Dear SS, thankyou for sharing this story. Relationships are not easy and clean, and the search for a scape goat is an easy out. I feel inspired by your story to keep my marriage alive not by ‘being there for the other, til death do us part’ but by being me and allowing my partner the same respect.
Thank you for so openly and honestly sharing your experiences and the joy of choosing to be more of yourself – the best relationship we can have in the world.
Each of us is the ‘one friend who is with you every step of of the way’ if we truly cherish and nurture that deep and loving connection with ourselves.
“I was loving myself more and this bought up his own insecurities about how he felt about himself.”
Thank you for your sharing your story. Your sentence (above) has provided a revealing insight into the reasons why relationships break down and given us much to consider.
Your account of this phase of your life (and indeed mine) is powerful and confronting. You displayed amazing courage and commitment to find the cause and reasons for your sudden critical illness. Thank you for sharing, you are indeed an inspiration and it is an absolute joy for me to observe and experience your unfoldment and true love.
Thank you for such a clear reflection of the impact of returning to OURSELVES. Whilst your situation is ‘extreme’ in relation to your illness, it nonetheless represents the choice we all must make if we are to truly heal and return to the love that we are. Our losses along the way are but a realisation and a shedding of what was not love in the first place.
All very well to write these words but it is in the moment by moment choices that the real test lies and that is what I am learning more and more my responsibility in every moment.
What a powerful experience and we are so blessed by your ‘return’ and the livingness you reflect as you go about growing into more of YOU.